• How low cost airline subsidies are hampering the great modal shift (RailwayTechnology)
• History of Heathrow Express, from WW2 plans, to the future (IARO)
• Ireland’s Strategic Rail Review makes 30 proposals to greatly improve railway (RailwayGazette)
• Some transport systems hide the network: The map is the network (CityWayfinding)
• Four cities that put disabled travellers first: the world’s most accessible cities (BBC)
• The people keeping vintage rail cars rolling across the US (AtlasObscura)
• Car brain is a pervasive & universal death cult (Atlantic)
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@LBM
I’ve just gotten around to reading “History of Heathrow Express, from WW2 plans, to the future (IARO)” and it’s an excellent read!
I’m especially impressed as it includes all those Heathrow Extension Proposals that I got called out on mention on here in the past… Now I have a primary source bookmarked.
I also read it and agree that it’s a very useful record of rail at Heathrow, although very much from the perspective of the BAA / HAL as a commercially-driven private sector operator, which I guess is reasonable given the contemporary enthusiasm for privatisation. As someone who spent much of my later working life in negotiation with them I had to smile at Paul Le Blond’s justification for the aggressive promotion of HEX within the terminals to the near exclusion of any concept of providing a public service with a clear picture of the (much cheaper) alternatives, and his obvious bitterness over the ORR decision on track access charges. A good read, but I think written through a fairly narrow lens!
B&T: I thought it was rather nice of them to actually say that what they’ve been doing with the aggressive selling: I did notice passing though that the Piccadilly Line is almost hidden now at Heathrow and there’s no “change here for the Liz Line” signage at Heathrow on the Piccadilly Line and the in-airport interchange signage almost invisible.
I mean, I’m happy that people aren’t using the roads around the Heathrow Airport because arriving passengers are being heavily encourage to use the train, but if you actually want to get to Southall or Ealing when a person arrives at the airport then being whisked to Paddington is not helpful for them.